Get Clanked Up
by Jonathan R
Summary: Yet another Jak and Daxter/Ratchet and Clank crossover. This time, Jak and Daxter end up in the wrong place after traveling through a warp portal.


"Get Clanked Up"

Due to the success of my first Jak/Daxter//Ratchet/Clank story, here's another one.  This time, Jak and Daxter enter the world of Ratchet and Clank.  So…long, long ago…in a galaxy far, far away…in a scenario very, very familiar…

Somewhere in the center of the before-mentioned galaxy, there was a space station.  It sat there, revolving slowly, in the vastness of space with the nearest planet sitting several light years away.  The station appeared deserted, except for a small rocket ship that was docked at one of the station's dual docking bays.  The space station itself looked similar to that well-known baby toy with the different-sized colored rings that you have to stack up around a peg from biggest to smallest.  There were four levels to the station with numerous rooms and hallways.

One of these rooms was a storage closet on the bottom level.  There were crates and pieces of paper scattered around the room.  Metal columns and machinery decorated the walls and a window displayed the starry view of space.  

Also in the room, propped up against the wall was a mirror.  At least, to the untrained eye it looked like a mirror.  But if you looked closely, you could see that it looked very primitive.  The circular frame was constructed from some type of wood and there wasn't any glass in the mirror at all.

Suddenly, something started happening to that hoop of wood.  A strange vortex began to appear in the middle of the hoop.  No one was in the room at the time, so no one saw the blue and white beams of light shoot out from the vortex and illuminate the room like a television at night.  The vortex took up all the space in the middle of the hoop and began emitting a strange swirling sound.

Then, without warning, a figure burst forth from the vortex and landed on his stomach.  As soon as he hit the ground, the vortex disappeared.  The small lights on the walls and the stars from outside were the only sources of light that remained.  

Jak opened his eyes.  He always felt uncomfortable when traveling through those warp portals, but this time it felt different somehow.  He couldn't describe it exactly.  Jak looked around.  He found himself lying on a metal floor in a strange room.  Before he could reevaluate his surroundings, Jak heard muffled shouting and felt movement from underneath him.  With a start, Jak realized that he was flattening his furry friend, Daxter!  Jak got up on his knees as the perturbed ottsel shook his head and slowly got to his feet.

"Man!" groaned Daxter.  "You gotta watch your balance coming out of those things, big guy," he told Jak.  Daxter looked around the room and quirked an eyebrow.  "Looks like the Green Sage has been doing some redecorating for a change."

Jak disagreed.  They weren't at the Green Sage's hut at all.  Jak remembered that he and Daxter were on Geyser Rock to pick up that last power cell and had jumped into the warp portal to take them back to the Green Sage's hut.  It wasn't until Jak looked out the window that he realized they weren't even on their own planet.

"Hey, Jak!" shouted Daxter, eyeing his friend's bewildered expression.  "What'cha lookin' at out there?"  Daxter climbed up onto Jak's shoulder and looked out the window.

Both of them were greeted by the emptiness of space and the tiny pinpoints of stars.

Immediately, Daxter started screaming and running around the room…just like when he was first turned into an ottsel.  After a few minutes, Daxter calmed down.

"Okay," he said.  His paws were rubbing his head, trying to make sense of the situation.  "The warp portal must've malfunctioned, and we're somehow stuck here on some sort of space place."  Daxter looked down at his feet and then back at Jak.  "Hey, if we're in space, how come we're not floating around?"

Jak answered with a shrug.

Just then, a voice pierced the silence.  Jak jumped and Daxter leaped up into the air, screaming.  The electronic voice came from a speaker in one corner of the room.  "Incoming spacecraft approaching.  Entering docking bay two."

Jak discovered Daxter dangling from a light bulb suspended from the ceiling.  Eventually, the bulb began to burn Daxter's paws, so he fell to the floor with a 'plop'.  He woozily got up and said, "Maybe we'd better see who these visitors are.  Maybe they can tell us where we are too."  Jak nodded in agreement.  "Now," continued Daxter.  "How do we get to docking bay two?"

Jak looked around and pointed to a map of the space station on the wall.  He and Daxter walked over to it and studied it.

"Where do you think we are, Jak?" asked Daxter.

Jak reached forward and pointed to the dot on the map that read 'You are here.'

"I knew that," remarked Daxter.

They studied the map some more until they found docking bay two.  It was on the second level of the station.  "Just one floor above us!" shouted Daxter as he climbed onto Jak's shoulder.  "C'mon, Jak.  Let's give those space travelers a big 'Jak and Daxter' greeting!"

Seeing nothing else to do, Jak left the room with Daxter on his shoulder.

The door to docking bay two opened.  Ratchet the reluctant space traveler walked into the space station with Clank at his side.

"What's the name of this place again?" asked Ratchet, looking around.

"The computer said this was the 'Klinge (pronounced 'klin-jay') Space Station'," said Clank, recalling what the ship's computer had downloaded into his memory bank.  "It was thought to be abandoned."

"Abandoned?" repeated Ratchet.  "You mean there's no fuel here?"

"I believe there is a large reserve tank on the underside of the station," stated Clank.

"Good," replied Ratchet.  "Those power cell things we got at that last planet were not as fuel efficient as I thought." (Read my previous Jak and Daxter story for more info.)

"I believe the correct term was 'blue eco'," mentioned Clank.

"Thank you, Mr. Information," said Ratchet sarcastically.  "Right now, I think we need to figure out where this extra fuel is."

Ratchet caught sight of a map on the wall.  Clank scanned the map and discovered the main control room at the top level of the space station.  Before Clank could say anything, Ratchet found the control room on the map and blurted out, "I'll bet that's where we'll find the controls that will put the fuel into our ship."

"Um, yes," muttered Clank.

"Well what are we waiting for?  Come on!"  Ratchet ran down the hall with Clank right behind him.

Elsewhere on the same level, Jak and Daxter popped out of a ventilator shaft and collapsed onto the floor of a hallway.

"Well," coughed Daxter.  "That's one way to get to the next level.  Now, how…?"

Jak covered Daxter's mouth and put a finger to his lips.  The sound of running footsteps could be heard.  Jak and Daxter crept toward the corner of the hallway where the sound was coming from.  Before they reached the corner, the sound stopped.

"What is it?" Ratchet whispered to Clank.  Ratchet had been running down the hallway, but Clank had stopped him.

"My sensors indicate two life forms on the other side of that corner."  Clank pointed to the end of the hallway where it cut sharply to the left.

"Thanks for the warning," whispered Ratchet.  He clutched his wrench that he always carried with him and walked slowly toward the corner.

The two pairs of adventurers, as I'm sure you've guessed by now, were on either side of the 90 degree corner of the hallway.  Ratchet decided to let Clank peek around the corner.  Jak decided to let Daxter peek around the corner.  So, the two tiny heroes slowly approached the edge of the corner and, quick as a flash, poked their heads around the corner at the same time.

For a split second, Daxter thought he was looking at his twin!  But, then he realized it was his own reflection…reflecting off a big, green-eyed robot face!

Daxter and Clank jumped back with a start!  This caused Jak and Ratchet to jump around the corner.  Ratchet was just about to hit Jak with his wrench when he suddenly recognized the intruder.

"Hey!  It's you! From that planet we were at!" shouted a bewildered Ratchet.

"Yeah, I remember you two!" responded Daxter.  "What are you two doing here?"

"We arrived on our spaceship," answered Clank.  "But I think the more interesting question is what are YOU two doing here?"

"Well, one of our planet's warp portals sent us here, I guess," said Daxter, scratching his head.

"Warp what?" questioned Ratchet.

"I believe it's similar to those teleportation devices we've encountered on several planets and space stations," said Clank.

"Oh," said Ratchet.  He stared at Jak for a minute.  He didn't think he'd heard that guy say one word since they'd met.  "Well, we've ran out of eco for our ship, so we're here to refuel."

"Yes," interrupted Clank.  "We're on our way to the top level of this station.  We believe that there might be a control room there…and someone who could tell us how to refuel it."

"You mean there's someone else here?" asked Ratchet with surprise.

"Of course there is!  Didn't you notice that other ship docked at the other docking bay?  Someone else must be here."

Daxter sighed suavely.  "Well, I guess it's up to us to try and talk him into letting us use the fuel that's onboard."  He then began prancing down the hallway heroically.  Ratchet and Clank looked at Jak, who just rolled his eyes, as if to say, "Yeah, he does that all the time."

Daxter walked over to the ventilation shaft and entered it.

"Where are you going?" asked Ratchet.

Sticking his head out of the entrance, Daxter said, "How else are you gonna get to the top level?"

"How about the elevator?" asked Clank, who pointed down the hallway towards a pair of futuristic elevator doors.

"Um….of course!  The elevator!  Let's go!"  Daxter leaped out of the duct and ran towards the elevator.

"Strange little guy isn't he?" whispered Ratchet.

"Strange doesn't even begin to describe him," said Clank.  Jak nodded in agreement.

As the elevator traveled up to the top level, Ratchet tried unsuccessfully to strike a conversation with Jak.  Meanwhile, Clank told Daxter all about the person they were pursuing, Chairman Drek.

"He's been creating a new planet for his people to live on," explained Clank.

"That sounds neat!" exclaimed Daxter.

"Unfortunately, he's creating his planet from the pieces of existing planets," said Clank with a shudder.

"Yeesh!  Sounds like that guy has way too much time on his hands!"

The elevator continued its journey towards the top level.  The elevator music blared out from an unseen sound speaker.

"Arrrrgh!  That music is driving me crazy," shouted Ratchet.

Luckily, they all reached the top level before Ratchet had a chance to discover the speaker and destroy it.

The doors opened and a short hallway was visible.  Halfway down the hall, a large robot noticed them and began to approach them.  It had an angered expression on its face.

"Look out!  It's heading this way!" shouted Daxter.

His friend Jak rushed at the attacking robot and did a spin attack.  Unfortunately, it didn't harm the robot's thick, metal body, and Jak was thrown back towards his friends.

"I'll take care of him," said Ratchet.  He approached the robot and threw his wrench at it.  The wrench hit the robot with a 'clang' and returned to Ratchet like a boomerang.  Ratchet threw the wrench two more times before the robot exploded in a shower of nuts and bolts, which immediately flew to Ratchet and were collected.

"Wow!" exclaimed Daxter.  "Hey, Jak, bet you could use a weapon like that, huh?"

Jak smirked.  It would be cool, but, like his voice, he preferred weapons to be absent.  (But that's all gonna change when Jak 2 comes out this fall.)

Turning his attention back to Ratchet, Daxter asked why those nuts and bolts were collected.

"They kind of work the same way as those orbs on your planet do.  A type of currency, I guess," replied Ratchet.

By now, the four of them reached the main control room.  To their surprise, there was no one there.

"Now what?" asked Daxter.

"I guess we have to find the refueling mechanism ourselves," said Clank.

It took quite a while for them to find the instructions to refuel the ship, but they eventually completed their task.

"Well, that was easy," said Daxter.

"Yeah, if you call searching the control panel for an hour trying to find the switch that read 'refuel docking bay two' easy," remarked Ratchet.

Daxter was about to argue, but suddenly Clank shouted, "Look!"  A small, flying robot came out from behind one of the control panels.

"What is it?" asked Daxter.

"It's an infobot," said Clank.

Before he could say anything more, the infobot opened its mouth to reveal a TV screen.  It turned on, and a hideous, gourd-shaped creature was on the screen.  "Hello, viewers," he said.  He sounded like a person on an infomercial.

"Eeww, who's that?" asked Daxter.

"That would be Chairman Drek," said Ratchet through gritted teeth.

"As you know, I am only one planet away from completing my new plan to create our new home planet."

"Yeah," uttered Ratchet angrily.  "Seeing as how MY planet is the last one you plan to destroy."

Clank leaned over to a shocked Jak and Daxter.  "We learned about that little piece of information on the last planet we visited, just before we arrived here."

Drek continued.  "I hope you all know that our star ships have been recently refueled at the Klinge Space Station.  There is still quite a few thousand gallons more of the fuel in the station, but once our planet is complete, we will have no more use for the space station.  Therefore…"

"Uh-oh, I don't like the sound of that," said Clank.

"Therefore, once this infobot is done relaying this broadcast, you will have five minutes before this space station is blown into oblivion.  I sincerely hope some fools who are thinking of rebellion will be 'blown away' by my little plan."  Drek laughed evilly.  "Thank you for watching."

The infobot turned off.

At once, an alarm sounded off and a red light began blinking over and over again.

Daxter was, of course, in a state of panic.  "What do we do?  What do we do?" he kept shouting over and over.

"Ratchet and I must get back to our ship!" shouted Clank.

Daxter ran to Clank, grabbed him by his metal throat and ended up nose-to-nose with him again.  "But what are Jak and I supposed to do?!!"

Jak abruptly tore Daxter off of Clank before Ratchet could do anything.  Jak then pointed to a wooden hoop off to the side.  It was a warp portal that just happened to lying conveniently in one corner of the room.

The four heroes ran to the portal and tilted it up.  "How does this thing work?" asked Daxter, knowing that Ratchet and Clank couldn't answer the question.  "If only I had some white eco right now, I'd…"

Daxter stopped.  A vortex was beginning to appear.  Everyone let go as the hoop toppled to the floor.  As the blue and white light of the vortex began to mix with the red alarm lights, Jak and Daxter carefully approached the portal.  It looked like a hole in the ground to some new mysterious place.

Jak turned around and waved to Ratchet and Clank.  Then he snatched up Daxter.  

"Wait!  Shouldn't we let them go first?" asked Daxter before he and Jak stepped through the portal and disappeared.  The vortex once again faded out.

"C'mon!" shouted Clank.  "By my estimates, we have approximately two minutes before the place explodes!"

So, Ratchet and Clank raced down the hallway, and entered the elevator.  It seemed to travel painfully slow this time.  Once the doors opened again, Ratchet and Clank ran down the hallway, turned the 90 degree corner, and dove into docking bay two.  Within moments, their spaceship zoomed away from the space station.

"Hang on!" shouted Clank.

Two seconds later, an explosion lit up the darkness of space.  The shock wave caused the spaceship to shake violently for a moment.  Then all was silent.

"That was close," said Ratchet.

"I'll say," agreed Clank.

Ratchet realized something.  "How do you think that spaceship in docking bay one got there?"

"My guess is that Drek left it there as a decoy to lure others into thinking it was inhabited."

Ratchet nodded.  "Well, at least we know those two weirdos got out alright." 

The spaceship kicked into hyperdrive and continued in the direction of Drek's starship.

"There you two are!" said a familiar voice.

Jak and Daxter looked up and saw the Green Sage standing over them.

"Lucky for you two I was able to locate where you were and brought you back."  He pointed to a makeshift control panel on a desk in the corner.

"Lucky?!!  If it weren't for you, we'd be dead!  Of course, we were lucky!" exclaimed Daxter.

"I'm not surprised," muttered the Green Sage.  "Now, I think it's about time we do a little redecorating around here."

"What?!!" exclaimed Daxter.  "But we just…"

A mop landed on his head and a brush was thrown at Jak, who was looking at the warp portal behind him.  "Now get to work," said the Green Sage.

Jak looked at Daxter.  "Don't look at me," said Daxter tossing the mop to Jak as best he could.  "It was YOUR idea to go to Geyser Rock in the first place."

Jak rolled his eyes as the two of them got to work.

End


End file.
